As is typical for storms, I am slowly finding damage to the house from the hurricane. Also as usual, it is electrical and electronic damage. While trying to find out why I am having so many Internet issues, I discovered that I lost the UPS that powers my routers and modem. That isn’t why I am having problems, but it is something that has to be replaced.
I also lost my intelligent irrigation system. The one that stings is the irrigation system. Its two year warranty expired 16 days ago.
9 Comments
Wayne · October 2, 2022 at 7:07 am
Most routers and modems run on 12V DC (look at the label on the plug in power pack).
It is possible to build a UPS for these systems using a larger DC power supply, as well as a battery charger and a large battery (https://www.westmountainradio.com has most of the parts needed).
If you need to ensure exactly 12V, look at a buck-boost voltage regulator (easily found on amazon).
The biggest advantage of such a system is runtime. With a big (75 Ah) battery, you can get close to 20 hours before things shut down.
It's just Boris · October 2, 2022 at 11:16 am
You still would need to worry about isolation from line surges, though. That is part of what a good UPS is supposed to do.
DM, if you don’t mind my asking, what brand of UPS did you have? And, in what way did it fail?
Divemedic · October 2, 2022 at 12:27 pm
It was a Cyberpower EC850. Failure mode is odd. Diagnostics say that the battery is fine, but it occasionally shuts down for no reason that I can see. The breaker doesn’t trip. None of the other UPS in the house see any voltage anomalies, so I think the power is clean.
Storms and lightning here are hell on power supplies. I have also lost just in the past 5 years a Cyberpower CP150 and an APC BE550
It's just Boris · October 2, 2022 at 2:51 pm
Interesting. We had the same model. About three years back we had a power outage and everything plugged into it shut off. Apparently the battery had died, even though the unit said all was well.
I looked at replacing the battery, but at least with the version we had, that required cracking the case and some solder work. Combined with the apparent quiet failure, we decided to junk it and go with an APC, partly because of the ease of battery replacement.
Ratus · October 2, 2022 at 11:59 am
Not bad, apparently the neutral line for my electric service got disconnected during the S̶t̶o̶r̶m̶ very mild weather I experienced.
When they restored power I experienced a bunch of weird electrical issues, random breakers popping and limited power in the whole house, it eventually damaged my ovens control board and blew out a couple of surge protectors.
Beans · October 2, 2022 at 1:13 pm
Internet funky and all your stuff seems to be working? How do you get internet?
If it’s from a physical line, ten-to-one that your internet is spotty because the distribution cable that feeds your area has cracks and/or leaks in it. Water damage. It took 4 years for Cox Cable to find that the distribution line in the whole neighborhood needed replacing. Customer service swore that it was my house, which got rewired, got a new feed line, got new everything. Meanwhile all the cable customers in the neighborhood dropped off said cable service. Wonder why…
Big Country Expat · October 2, 2022 at 5:58 pm
Warranty? yeah, same. exact. thing happened to me a few years back… My big honkin’ 72 inch Samsung ‘popped’ and smoked, and when I checked, the warranty had expired no joke like 3 days before. Makes you wonder about pre-planned obsolescence Aye?
Big Ruckus D · October 2, 2022 at 7:47 pm
I heavily recommend a whole house surge protector at the panel that also protects the neutrals. Siemens makes a couple that fit the bill. That provides a first line of defense for anything plugged in or hardwires, anywhere in the house.. May spare UPS units from taking a hit that kills them prematurely.
Anonymous · October 3, 2022 at 12:24 am
> Square D Surgelogic 36-kA Indoor and Outdoor Surge Protective Device
lowes.com $65 -ish. Lower end version of these caps surges to 750 Volts or so. Judging by lack of other problems has prevented those problems. Wire it in yourself to the load side of a circuit breaker; this MOV responds in microseconds while the breaker responds in fractional seconds.
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